National Observer, Australia, No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)

 

The climate change hoax:
Why Australia should oppose the emissions trading scheme

by William Kininmonth

National Observer
Australia's independent current affairs online journal
No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010).

The topic of this article, "The climate change hoax: why Australia should oppose the emissions trading scheme", allows a very broad canvas. I will constrain my comments to what might loosely be called the science of climate change. Unfortunately, space will only permit me to touch on a few of the more important issues, but I hope I can leave you with the impression that we are being unnecessarily alarmed about our role in climate change.

For two decades, we have been consistently warned by alarmists that our fossil-fuel-based energy-consuming lifestyles are leading to dangerous global warming. We are warned that, if we do not mend our ways, we will cause the climate system to pass a tipping point leading to runaway irreversible climate change; that, some say, will have diabolical consequences. All this conjecture is based on projections from computer models, the modern equivalent of the magician's smoke and mirrors.

There are powerful vested interests across the environmental and research domains that do not want the scaremongering climate change bandwagon stopped. Added to this is the more recent emergence of technological and financial sectors that will prosper from government-subsidised and sanctioned activities under an emission trading scheme, activities that would otherwise be uneconomical and uncompetitive.

Political activists and rent-seekers are leading the global community down a path that will hinder progress, especially for less developed countries. The outcome will have no beneficial impact on climate, and will jeopardise the safety and security of everyone as constraints on energy generation systems diminish our ability to cope with known climatic extremes.

As a scientist with some understanding of the Earth's climate system and the processes that regulate our changing climate I have to say, "Stop! A terrible mistake is being made. Decisions are being taken, based on a misunderstanding of the most basic aspect of our climate system."

This is not the first time that the conventional wisdom about our Earth system has been fundamentally wrong, and is not likely to be the last.

We are all aware of the 16th-century dispute between Galileo and the Church over whether the Earth orbited the Sun or whether the Sun orbited the Earth. There can be nothing more fundamental to our understanding of our place in the cosmos, and yet Galileo was threatened with torture for challenging the prevailing consensus.

Many will be aware of the early 20th-century dispute over the permanency of the place of the continents on our apparently solid Earth. Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist and polar explorer, in 1926 went to the US and presented his views on continental drift to a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. He was received with laughter; it is recorded that the president of the Society got up at the end of the presentation and called it "Utter, damned rot!"

For more than forty years, any scientist who gave credence to continental drift theory was derided; many an academic career was stunted because of dallying with the possibility of continental drift. A global programme of ocean floor drilling and analysis has confirmed that the continents are indeed drifting across the not so solid Earth's mantle.

 

Misrepresentation of the greenhouse effect

In the current debate over human influence on climate change there is a fundamental misrepresentation of the greenhouse effect and its enhancement by carbon dioxide. This misunderstanding is widespread, both as it is portrayed to the public and in scientific publications, including by the authors of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. The misrepresentation is best illustrated by a quotation from Tim Flannery's popular 2005 book, The Weather Makers. He says, (p28):

Greenhouse gases do not heat the atmosphere; the greenhouse gases tend to cool the atmosphere. The rate of radiation cooling is about 2°C per day.

How could such a misrepresentation come about? The misrepresentation has its origins in the middle of the 19th century and the experimental work of English scientist John Tyndall. He found that as infrared radiation passes through certain gases, including water vapour and carbon dioxide, part of the radiation energy is absorbed by the gas. And with greater concentrations of these gases more energy is absorbed.

Tyndall's observations gave credibility to an idea about the Earth's greenhouse effect proposed in the 1820s by French mathematician Joseph Fourier. Fourier's hypothesis suggested that radiation from the sun penetrated the atmosphere and the energy absorbed in the surface was re-radiated back to space as "earth" radiation; part of this "earth" radiation was absorbed, thus warming the atmosphere. The gases also radiated energy back to the surface, thus warming the surface.

In 1896, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius drew on the hypothesis of Fourier and the work of Tyndall in an attempt to explain the occurrence of ice ages. Arrhenius carried out calculations that suggested a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from a period of intense volcanic activity would raise the temperature of the Earth by about 5°C. Conversely, over a prolonged period of reduced volcanic activity, carbon dioxide would be absorbed in the oceans and not replenished; if concentration were to fall to half the existing value then global temperatures would fall by about 5°C, giving rise to glacial conditions.

Fourier's 1820 hypothesis is faithfully carried forward by the IPCC to its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. In its explanation of the greenhouse effect the IPCC states (p115):

The problem is that this explanation, like Flannery's interpretation, could not be more misleading for the public whom it is meant to guide. The greenhouse gases emit radiant energy independently of what they absorb. In the atmosphere the magnitude of emission, both to space and back to Earth, exceeds the magnitude of the radiation absorbed from the Earth below.

The cooling property of the greenhouse gases has been known for more than 50 years. An Earth energy budget that quantifies the net rate of loss of energy from the atmosphere is included in the recent IPCC reports. Yet the IPCC persists with its misleading characterisation of the greenhouse effect as warming by absorption of infrared radiation.

The greenhouse effect involves more than radiation processes. The US meteorologists Herbert Riehl and Joanne Simpson (née Malkus) in 1958 described the processes for distributing the excess solar energy from the surface to offset the radiation loss of the atmosphere. The transfer is achieved by way of clouds, particularly the deep convection clouds that we observe as thunderstorms in summer and in the tropics. These clouds are driven by the buoyancy of the ascending air in their updraughts. The cloud updraughts will only achieve buoyancy if the temperature of the air decreases with height at a rate of more than 6.5°C/km.

The relatively warm temperatures at the Earth's surface are not because of the absorption of Earth's radiation by greenhouse gases but because of the thermodynamic requirements of buoyant convection. The radiation processes contribute to the greenhouse effect and are an essential part of the flow of energy through the climate system, but it is misleading to suggest the absorption of radiation is the dominant factor.

When we come to assessing the enhancement of the greenhouse effect, then it is processes associated with surface evaporation and with clouds that are also important for regulating the magnitude of response. Latent energy is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere by evaporation of water vapour. Evaporation is significant for two reasons: First, more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface is made up of oceans; and, second, the rate of evaporation increases near exponentially with surface temperature. As ocean temperature increases, there is a rapid increase in latent energy exchange; this surface energy loss is a strong constraint to further surface temperature rise.

Not only are evaporation and cloud processes vitally important in the climate system but they are also amongst the most difficult to specify in computer models. It is now recognised that computer models used in the IPCC Fourth Assessment underestimate the rate of increase of evaporation with temperature by a factor of three. As a consequence, the computer models exaggerate the projected temperature rise from carbon dioxide increase and they underestimate projected rainfall.

 

Earth's climate before industrialisation

A second fallacy of the anthropogenic global warming argument is the claim that Earth's climate was stable prior to industrialisation.

A hundred million years ago Earth and its climate were much different from now. India, Africa, South America and Australia were joined with Antarctica to form the super continent of Gondwanaland. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were about 1,000 ppm, three times the current concentration, and polar regions were mild. The warm ocean currents washed the shores of Gondwanaland and rainforests with diverse ecosystems covered land that is now under kilometres of ice.

With time, in accordance with Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, the super continent broke up leaving only Antarctica occupying the region of the South Pole. The last separation was South America with the opening of Drake Passage. This latter had momentous impact on Earth's climate because it allowed the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that now girdles the Antarctic continent.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current effectively isolates Antarctica from warmer subtropical oceans. This separation from the warm waters caused Antarctica to cool and mountain glaciers develop. Also winter sea ice formed around the coastal margins. The cold and saline water under coastal sea ice is dense and sinks to the ocean floor. Over millions of years the once warm oceans stratified as cold waters filled the depths and occupied the ocean interior. The thermohaline circulation, with sinking cold polar water, continues today and maintains the cold ocean interior.

About 3.5 million years ago the Earth's climate took a dramatic turn that is clearly recorded in the marine skeletons accumulating in the sediments of the ocean floor. Not only did the ocean surface temperature take on a cooling trend but the temperature began to fluctuate with ever-increasing magnitude. Episodes of increasing cold were followed by brief returns to near the earlier warmer temperatures.

Ice cores from Antarctica confirm the oscillation between glacial and interglacial conditions over the last half million years, each cycle lasting about 100,000 years.

At the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago carbon dioxide levels had fallen to about 180 ppmv and the climate was very different from now.

During the glacial periods there were frequent periods when the climate changed very quickly, and for reasons that we do not understand. There is evidence from the Greenland ice cores of quite sudden regional temperature rises of about 10°C over a century, known as Dansgard-Oeschger events.

Ocean sediment cores from the North Atlantic Ocean also identify sudden increases in the rate of iceberg formation during the last glacial epoch. These Heinrich events are characterised by sediment layers with an increase in granular soil material, or ice rafting debris, in the structure. The granular material comes from melting of icebergs whose origins can be traced to the land bounding the Hudson Strait and from eastern Greenland.

A great global warming event commenced about 19,000 years ago and it changed the landscape of Earth. The temperature of the equatorial oceans rose only about 3°C, but the North American and European ice sheets melted and their place was taken by the modern boreal forests. Sea level rose about 130 metres over about 8,000 years to reach near present elevations about 11,000 years ago. Tasmania and New Guinea were isolated from the Australian mainland, and coral growth followed the sea level rise; today's pristine coral reefs are of relatively recent origin.

During much of the last 10,000 years, a period known as the Holocene, temperatures were generally slightly warmer than now and lands wetter. The semi-arid and desert lands now covering much of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Australia were, until relatively recently, better vegetated with grass and woodlands. This is the period during which human civilisation evolved.

The advocates of dangerous human-caused global warming claim that the Earth's climate has been continually mild and equable over the past 10,000 years before the onset of industrialisation. The widespread evidence for climatic variability during this period challenges their proposition.

In 1966, before human-caused global warming was a matter of public debate, the English historian Kenneth Clark wrote:

Each of these periods of flourishing human culture can be linked to climatic warmth. They were times of plenty with ample food production to sustain the populations and support trade.

As the Roman legions advanced west and north during the first century BC they planted their crops and vines, eventually to northern England. Julius Caeser built a bridge to cross the Rhine River and subdue the Germanic tribes; the Rhine remained an effective barrier for 500 years.

Temperatures declined during the early centuries of the first millennium. There is strong evidence from that time of advancing glaciers over the Rocky Mountains of North America and the European Alps. In England, Saxon settlements continued to decline for more than a century after the withdrawal of the Romans in the early 5th century. As the Roman Empire declined, the Vandals were able to freely cross the Rhine River, frozen in winter, and spread across south-western Europe.

The period from about 800AD to 1200AD is known as the Medieval Warm Period. The Norse settled Iceland and coastal parts of Greenland, and at its peak Greenland comprised more than 3,000 individual settlements. This was also a period of generally increased food production across Europe that enabled major construction activities, including the many cathedrals that survive from the period.

The onset of cooler conditions commenced in the late 1200s. There is archaeological evidence that rural Europe was in decline in the half-century before the onset of the Black Death that killed up to a third of the population in 1348. The last Greenland settlement perished about 1550.

It was not constant cold during the centuries of the Little Ice Age. Cold was at its worst in the 17th century. The duration of glacier advance in the French Alps during the 15th century and their persistence from the 16th to the 18th century is well documented by the French historian Emmanuel Ladurie. During this latter period, coastal sea ice was a regular feature that prevented winter navigation around Iceland.

Winter frost fairs were common as many rivers of Europe again periodically froze. The London diarist John Evelyn describes the 1683-84 freezing of the Thames River from late December to early February. He wrote:

This description of life is not some Arcadian climate that we are led to believe existed in pre-industrial times. It is certainly not a climate state that we should voluntarily attempt to achieve by way of carbon dioxide reduction.

There is no convincing evidence that the climate of the late 20th century is unusual or unprecedented. There is abundant evidence that Earth has warmed since the late 1600s as climate generally recovered from the Little Ice Age. The warming commenced at least two centuries before industrial emissions of carbon dioxide began their modern expansion in the early 1940s.

Over the past three centuries there has been ongoing reduction in wintertime coastal sea ice in many parts of the North Atlantic; settlements have again been established in Greenland; there has been contraction poleward of wintertime freezing of European rivers; and the worldwide retreat of mountain glaciers is well documented. All these commenced well before the massive increase in fossil fuel use of the middle to late 20th century.

 

More recent global temperatures

The global temperature record as measured by instruments is available since 1850, but its veracity prior to about 1900 is questionable. The earliest data are sparse and of doubtful quality because they preceded the first National Meteorological Services with dedicated observations programs that only came into existence in the 1870s. International standards of instrumentation and observing procedures only date from about 1900.

The global temperature record since 1900 suggests an overall rise of about 0.6°C. The warming was mainly over two periods, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998, with declining temperatures between. Unfortunately, the historical temperature records tend to be sparse prior to 1950 and averages may not be globally representative. In addition, since the 1980s there has been a widespread change in measuring technology as automated recording instruments have been introduced widely to replace the manually read mercury-in-glass thermometers.

There are regional differences in temperature record characteristics. For example, the temperature records from Uppsala and Stockholm that are continuous from the middle 1700s identify the 1780s, the 1930s and the recent decade as equally warm periods. In the US, where records go back to the late 1800s, the 1930s were as warm as the recent decade. In Australia, the middle 1970s marks an apparent 0.5°C warming shift.

Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney have temperature records extending back to the middle 1800s. Prior to "Black Saturday" of February 2009, the extreme daily maximum temperatures of each were recorded during a prolonged and spatially extensive heat wave over south-eastern Australia in January 1939. New extreme maximum temperatures over parts of Victoria were set in the days leading up to and on "Black Saturday" during another heat wave.

Regularly in the press there are announcements of new indicators of so-called unprecedented global warming, mostly relating to the Arctic. On examination these are found to be unsubstantiated, or there is no historical benchmark against which to judge the veracity of the claims.

Many of the medieval Norse settlements of Greenland remain icebound. This suggests that in that region temperatures were generally warmer during the Medieval Period than they are today. Satellite monitoring of Arctic sea ice that commenced in 1979 has shown a diminishing trend. However, written accounts clearly identify a major warming episode that commenced about 1918 and continued into the 1940s. In 1944, the ice-fortified schooner St Roch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sailed the North West Passage from Halifax to Vancouver in one season.

The written accounts indicate that regional sea ice and coastal glacier extent now are greater than the earlier period. A recent voyage into the eastern Arctic Ocean by an ice-strengthened German freighter through the Eastern Passage has been highlighted, but this ignores the Russian summer fleet that has been operating in the same region since 1934.

Some high mountain passes of the European Alps are now accessible as permanent snow and ice have melted. Archaeological studies, based on the dating of items discarded by travellers, point to these passes having previously been used as transport routes. The passes have opened and closed as temperature and ice conditions have varied and confirm that the present warmth has precedents.

The evidence supports the proposition that the current warmth of the Earth is not unusual. Climate over the past 10,000 years was not steady. The wider picture is that the current interglacial was at it warmest between 8,000 and 4,000 years ago and that temperatures have been slowly declining since in a series of irregular fluctuations.

The concept of a stable benign climate prior to human industrialisation is one that has little relationship to historical and proxy climate records.

 

Two final points

There are two final points that I would like to make in relation to climate science.

First, although carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas, its additional potency with increased concentration is declining. The radiation forcing from doubling concentration from 50 ppm to 100 ppm is the same as doubling from the current concentration of near 400 ppm to 800 ppm. Additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a rapidly declining impact.

Second, it is important to emphasise that the Earth's surface is 70 per cent ocean. As the ocean surface warms there is a rapid increase in evaporation and exchange of latent energy that constrains surface temperature rise. A critical failing of the computer models used to project future temperatures is their underestimation, by a factor of three, of the rate of increase of evaporation. As a consequence they exaggerate future temperature rise and underestimate future increase in rainfall.

Additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can only cause limited enhancement to the natural greenhouse effect. The constant replenishment of the cold water of the ocean interior means that the concepts of tipping points and runaway irreversible global warming are absurdities.

 

William Kininmonth is a meteorologist who has had a distinguished career spanning more than 40 years. For more than a decade, from 1986 to 1998, he was head of Australia's National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology, with responsibilities for monitoring Australia's changing climate and advising the Commonwealth Government on the extent and severity of climate extremes, including the recurring drought episodes of the 1990s. He was Australian delegate to the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Climatology (1982-98), including two terms on its management board. William Kininmonth is author of the book, Climate Change: A Natural Hazard (UK: Multi-Science Publishing Co, 2004), ISBN: 9780906522264.

This article is from the text of a presentation by William Kininmonth to the News Weekly Dinner in Melbourne on 11 November 2009.

National Observer, Australia, No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)